Our Products & Capabilities

Among the largest and most technically advanced custom plastics thermoformers in North America, Gage Industries is also one of the most fully integrated manufacturing facilities of its kind. With three divisions – Rigid Plastic Packaging, Heavy Gauge Forming and Plastic Sheet Extrusion – Gage produces a wide range of custom and stock plastic products.

Products

Electronics

To the world of plastics manufacturing, the electronics industry presents demanding and diverse requirements—from highly specialized materials to rapid product development to customized quality programs. Gage is well positioned for the challenge.

Our in-house design, engineering, rapid prototyping, sheet extrusion of static-dissipative materials, value-added assembly and part integration all address the High Tech marketplace. Whether it’s pressure-formed bezels or fragility packaging, we provide the customized logistics to get the job done to the most specific parameters and within the most accelerated timeline.

Food

Think of the food industry as a wide arc of growing, harvesting, processing, distribution, sales, storage and consumption. At all points along the arc there are needs for functional, innovative, cost-effective products. Whether we're producing stock or custom products, different applications require different materials. We work in all the major plastics: CPET, APET, HDPE, PP and HIS.

Our Gage Meal Trays™ are rigid plastic CPET containers, bowls, trays, and lids in stock and custom sizes, shapes and compartmental configurations. Our super impact modified CPET, a specialty of ours for the past ten years, is freezable, microwavable and conventional oven safe to 400 F. This material packages a vast majority of the products found in any grocery or club store frozen food aisle. CPET also works well in refrigerator deli applications as a good barrier tray to extend product shelf life.

Gage Food Trays™ come in clear or colored APET for refrigerated products and in HDPE for fresh or frozen products.

Gage Cutting Trays™, in bright white FDA-approved HDPE, are durable and reusable. These inspection trays can be found in quality control labs throughout the food industry.

Gage also serves the food industry with custom products such as pallets, totes, bins and equipment components for storage and processing.

Industrial

The industrial world is the world of tough conditions, like repetitive impact, heavy traffic, and rough handling. Gage Industries brings its strong materials and tough design insights to meet the needs of industrial products—from durable floor laminate, to equipment cases and machinery covers, or anything else that is greeted every day with extreme stress. Using ABS, FRABS, polyethylene and polypropylene, we utilize sheet extrusion, pressure, vacuum and twin-sheet forming to create products that make the working world work better.

Medical

From products used in the manufacturing of medical equipment to the products found in labs, hospitals, and physician offices, Gage serves a diversity of product applications in the medical industry.

Run sizes can range from hundreds to millions, but no matter the quantity we track materials, monitor our processes and produce consistently high quality precision products. Thermoforming—with its low-cost tooling— becomes a more cost effective solution than injection molding. Our in-house prototyping services and custom sheet extrusion (think custom colors!) serve the medical industry well.

Nursery

Gage has a history of meeting the product needs of the horticultural industry. In the 1980’s, as an innovator in recycled plastic, we bought post-consumer plastic to make durable, HDPE containers. We put those old milk jugs to use. These Gage DuraPots™, still made from recycled materials, have formed ribs on their sides to allow for enhanced root growth and the easy release of seedlings. Gage Durapots™, available in a variety of sizes and colors, continue to be a product of choice for the nursery and greenhouse business.

Recreation

Recreational products need to withstand the most extreme conditions of weather and active fun. Look for Gage’s custom plastic products on ski slopes or in RVs, trailers, boats, sport bags, playground structures or golf carts. From ABS to TPU, the range of materials we use is as impressive as the range of customers we serve. With the recreation industry continually marketing new ideas, new colors, and variations on existing designs, we are valued for our ability to quickly develop prototypes, to produce small as well as large quantity runs and to use the most appropriate sheet extrusion, thermoforming or pressure-forming technologies available in the plastics industry.

Transportation

For the transportation industry, products oftentimes need to be many things at once: durable, lightweight, multi-colored and full of details normally associated with injection molding. Gage delivers on all of this with innovative materials and by providing start-to-finish design support and quality assurance—all at a low cost and with a quick turnaround.

We serve some of the largest names in the trucking industry with both formed and sheet products. And in doing so, we develop and manufacture products utilizing hybrid materials, sophisticated processes and final assembly of multiple parts.

Capabilities

New Product Development

At Gage, we focus on functionality and efficiency. Our design team looks at product development with an eye toward repeatable production and cost efficiency. We ask: How can we improve on the design to deliver best and most cost-effective results for your application? Before we build a tool, we ask: Are there ways to improve the form of the product or its surface details? We engineer the complete set of steps from resin to shipping with the customer’s needs in mind. Through 3-D drawings and rapid prototyping (which really does happen in a short timeline), we can uncover potential issues, develop a set of solutions, and show how the product will actually function and look. Our new product development is about maintaining long-term relationships with our customers.

Thin Guage

Gage is a leader in developing thin wall thermoformed packaging products for the food, medical, electronic and nursery industries. Although we have been nationally recognized specialists in CPET technology since the mid-1990s, we work in a wide variety of other materials including HDPE, PP and APET. Long-standing relationships with major resin suppliers ensure us the best of materials at competitive pricing.

Our vertically integrated, technically advanced facility features a range of in-house capabilities, including extrusion, new product design, and state-of-the-art design engineering and tooling. Throughout the entire manufacturing process, we incorporate quality assurance and measure whatever is important to our customers. In our CPET line, for example, we regularly measure cold temperature impact strength, ovenability and formed detail.

Heavy Guage

We manufacture custom heavy gauge thermoformed plastic products serving a wide range of industries, from transportation to medical. Take a look at some of our custom products.

To all our customers we offer ISO 9000 certified quality assurance, customized logistical support and the cost savings of in-house product design and sheet extrusion.

Thermoforming is the heart of our heavy gauge division. Our advanced capabilities include:

• Pressure forming – a process that produces the sharp detail in products that is normally associated with injection molding but with lower tooling cost.
• Twin-sheet forming – a process used to enhance structural integrity and allow for the encapsulation of stiffeners, fasteners and foam filling.
• Reaction Injection Molding (RIM) – a process in which products can have molded-in features and varying wall thicknesses without the high tooling cost and high volume run requirements of injection molding.

For most heavy gauge products, final trim is accomplished using 5-axis CNC equipment. We also provide assembly/part integration and numerous secondary processes such as ultrasonic welding, riveting, painting, silk screening, flocking and EMI/RFI shielding.

Sheet Extrusion

Gage Industries is one of the leading custom extruders of sheet plastic and roll stock. In partnership with material suppliers, our highly experienced team brings our customers some of the most up-to-date, cost-effective technologies and materials available. We have in-house engineering expertise and round-the-clock production capabilities to quickly move your project from concept to delivery. Gage extrusion products ship to quality thermoformers and laminators throughout North America.

We produce general purpose and specialty impact grades of ABS, TPU/TPO, static dissipative and anti-static HDPE, CPET and APET polyesters and all the major olefins. Additional specialty materials are available upon request.

We extrude .020" to .375" in thickness and up to seventy-four inches in width. Our cut sheet and roll stock is produced in a variety of standard and custom colors. Our textures include: Print Quality Matte, Heavy Grit, Fine and Standard Haircell, Saddle Grain, Seville and Gage Moroccan. We also offer a two-or three-layer co-extrusion process, with options for weatherability and low gloss texture. In addition, single- or double-sided corona treatment and acrylic overlays are available.

ABS sheet produced by Gage serves an impressive mix of market sectors, from RV, aftermarket auto and mass transit to medical, dental, computer and electronics. Our olefin products can be found in packaging and protective instrument cases within industries as diverse as marine, heavy construction, travel and food.